Banerjee said she had cancelled her meeting with finance minister P Chidambaram and had apologised to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as she could not meet him on Tuesday.

"I apologised to the Prime Minister," said Banerjee.

Angry Trinamool Congress workers protested across West Bengal against the incident. "My cadres are totally peaceful. They are very emotional but listen to me," said Banerjee.

The chief minister hinted that someone was behind Tuesday's incident and said police had not allowed her to go inside the Planning Commission building.

"Of course," said Banerjee when asked if she thought someone was behind the incident.

"The gate was locked. I told police we had come for a Planning Commission meeting. Police officials said I could not go as they had no keys," she said. "There should have been a bloodbath ... but it is peaceful," she said, terming Left parties, which condemned Tuesday's incident, as hypocrites.

Banerjee and Mitra were on Tuesday targeted by CPI-M and its students' wing activists outside the Planning Commission office where they had gone to discuss West Bengal's annual plan in the afternoon.

The 65-year-old finance minister was jostled and pushed around as he tried to enter the Yojna Bhawan building. A woman protester thumped him twice on his chest and his kurta was torn in the melee.

Even though Banerjee was advised by police not to get down from her car and drive straight inside the complex, she chose to walk through the slogan-shouting and placard-wielding crowd to enter the building.